Special Report: The Fresh Grocer - Ringwood, NJ

The Fresh Grocer
Opened: November 8, 2024

Owner: Inserra family

Previous Tenants: Grand Union (1972-2001) > Stop & Shop (2001-2024)

Cooperative: Wakefern Food Corp.

Location: 130 Skyline Dr, Ringwood, NJ

Photographed: November 8, 2024

Of the 32 Stop & Shop stores that closed this fall, several already have new tenants. Four of them are now Food Bazaars, and one is slated to become an Uncle Giuseppe's Marketplace. But a sixth location is already reopened, this one under the banner The Fresh Grocer owned by Inserra Supermarkets! The 29,000 square foot store was constructed in 1972 as a Grand Union, later becoming a Stop & Shop in 2001 (tour the Stop & Shop here). Ringwood is a bit remote, so losing the only supermarket in town was a pretty big deal. And that's why it was good news that Inserra Supermarkets, which owns around 30 ShopRites and Price Rites in NJ and NY, moved in. Stop & Shop closed on October 10, and after about a month of renovation, The Fresh Grocer opened on November 8. Inserra also owns a ShopRite about six and a half miles west in West Milford.

The Fresh Grocer was a brand originally owned by the Burns family, which owned stores in and immediately around Philadelphia under the brand. In 2011, they joined Wakefern and converted one store to ShopRite. The rest remained under The Fresh Grocer banner. It wasn't until 2016, though, that the brand was used by other Wakefern members. Brown's, which owns ShopRite stores in and around Philadelphia (and now specialty chain DiBruno Brothers), opened two Fresh Grocers in Wyncote and Philadelphia. In 2020, New Jersey chain Nicholas Markets left the Foodtown cooperative and rebranded their four stores as The Fresh Grocer. In 2023, Gerrity's, a PA chain in the Scranton area affiliated with Shur-Save, joined Wakefern and changed their stores to The Fresh Grocer. And this summer, a ShopRite operator opened a Fresh Grocer on Long Island. So these days, The Fresh Grocer is typically a smaller-format store compared to ShopRite. (The average ShopRite is roughly twice the size of this store.) But not every Fresh Grocer is small-format and not every ShopRite is that big, so it functions as more of an alternative brand. A side note: I can't explain why the newer Fresh Grocer stores tend to use this style of logo, compared to this older type. "The" and "Grocer" are all but invisible on this store's exterior, although I do believe there's an exterior renovation here planned for the whole strip mall.

Enough background. Let's get into the store! I visited around noon on Friday, which was shortly after the store's official grand opening at 10 am. It was apparently Lindsey Inserra's birthday (one of the members of the family that owns the store), so instead of -- or perhaps in addition to? -- a ribbon cutting, there was a cake cutting inside the store. Sadly, I did not try any cake. I did take plenty of other free samples, though.

A fun way to start our tour! The store hasn't gotten a lot of work -- it was only closed for a month -- but it looks much, much better. Some fixtures have been replaced and some minor decor changes happened, but mostly the bones are the same. Regardless, it felt like the Inserras brought everything they had to spruce up the store and significantly improve it.

There's some new lighting and the produce tables are new, but the Grand Union flooring -- and wood paneling! -- still remain. In fact, the Grand Union decor is even still there under these new signs. You can catch a glimpse of a few of the old signs in this video.

Even with a few minor changes, the store looks much better. All it takes is a little cleaning, some new fixtures, and a much better perimeter. The layout hasn't changed at all, though, so produce is still in the front-left corner, deli and prepared foods in the back-left, meat on the back wall, seafood in the back-right corner (Inserra has reopened the service seafood counter), frozen split between the middle of the store and the right side with dairy on the right, and bakery in the front-right corner.

I don't know if the store is finished or if more extensive work will be done over time. There are a few fixtures that still look like they might need to be replaced, and the flooring could do with being replaced in some spots.

These new signs are quite nice, but they're still built into the bones of the Grand Union decor. On the other hand, I think it looks very harmonious.

The deli has been really fixed up, with a few stations Stop & Shop had closed now reopened. A small hot food bar has been added, along with a counter for custom sandwiches.

The grocery aisles look a lot like the Stop & Shop days, but with what seemed like a little bit more selection. New digital price tags, too. I don't believe the majority of the shelving was replaced, but lighting was added up each aisle -- a big improvement.

No service butcher, but they do seem to be cutting meat in-store, which Stop & Shop didn't.

The fixtures here weren't replaced, but they seem to be in decent condition. Maybe eventually Inserra will replace this refrigeration.

The freezers were replaced, though. Here's a look at this aisle before.

And although these aisle markers look a lot like the old ones, I think they're new.

Dairy, which is in a middle aisle of the store like frozen, is in some old cases, too, probably dating to the Grand Union days. I wouldn't be surprised if these are replaced soon.

The service seafood counter is very small, but it's more than nothing. Stop & Shop didn't have a service counter here by the time that I visited, although I don't know whether they ever did. I believe Grand Union did.

The rest of frozen foods line the outside of the store. 12 aisles in total, although the last two are shorter to accommodate the bakery in the front.

It looks like they're using a combination of store-made and pre-made products here, which makes sense given the small space I'm sure the bakery has. Breads, for instance, come in from Texeira's and other local bakeries, while cakes and similar things appear to be made on-site. Several endcaps at the ends of the next few aisles are stocked with baked goods.

You can see here that, even though some parts of the store are a bit low-effort, Inserra wasn't phoning it in. You could get away with a bakery less impressive than that in a store this size for sure. Many stores this size don't even have a bakery.

I wouldn't be surprised if Inserra took this store just as protection, to keep another operator out (and to remove potential competition for their West Milford and other area stores), but it does look like they're genuinely trying to run a good-quality supermarket here. If you were just trying to do the bare minimum to keep another operator out, you could get away with a lot smaller and less-thorough perimeter departments than they've set up here. It's worth noting that this store's most direct competition is actually another Stop & Shop, in Wanaque.

And a look at the front-end, which has several self-checkouts on the right side and a few staffed checkouts on the other.

I think Inserra did a great job with this store, although there's definitely still room for improvement if they want to continue modernizing the space. Still, it's a great replacement for Stop & Shop. Don't miss this weekend's other posts, too!

• Big Y opens in a space originally slated for Amazon Fresh near Bridgeport
• Key Food opens in an extensively-renovated former Save-A-Lot near Hartford
• Inserra Supermarkets' first The Fresh Grocer opens in a former Stop & Shop (this post)
• Amazon Fresh opens a long-dormant site in north Jersey
• ShopRite completes a major renovation at one of their oldest operating stores